The state is only concerned about statesmen’s issues [Archives:2008/1160/Opinion]
By: Ahmad Hussein Tallan
The government gets extremely engaged in governors' elections amid highway robberies, killings and other forms of crimes. It goes without saying that each state has its own components of existence and survival, and such components include people, homeland and order, which are available in our beloved Yemen, but our state lacks an appropriate political will to offer multiple services to people who are unarguably the direct beneficiaries from law and order.
Regretfully, such didn't happen from a practical viewpoint because the state doesn't represent will of the people, nor does it work according to the social contract under which it was given the right to rule and manage affairs of the nation. In Yemen, we have the kind of state that is extremely engaged in the issues of statesmen, as well as what is related with their affairs under the cover addressing social issues.
Our state is also extremely busy improving living conditions of statesmen, developing plans and programs and enacting legislations in line with interests of its members, who are monopolizing all the resources of the nation within a narrow scope not exceeding the limit of ruling General People's Congress (GPC).
Real faces, which had been conserved by the ruling elite for decades, were unveiled after they ran out of their cosmetic supplies. Here I mean that all the faults and deformities of the regime have become apparent as the invented scenes could not cover the regime's faults and mistakes.
The ridiculous scenes fabricated by the failed regime include the recently conducted gubernatorial elections, which the ruling party invented to cover its being unable to manage the national affairs at the central and local level. The ruling party amended the Local Authority Law in line with its policies that destroy all the components of law and order.
The GPC surprised us by these amendments when it added conditions and regulations that were not placed into effect under the system of governor appointments by republican decrees. In the past, the authority was controlling the selection process, buy now nobody knows which criteria the authority depends on in determining the qualities of an elected governor. Seemingly, there is nothing new and no difference between appointing governors or electing them as our government did in the first gubernatorial vote in the country.
The strangest thing is that the door was left open during the gubernatorial nomination process as no firm requirements or conditions were listed for candidates to satisfy. This disclosed numerous faults and frauds in the miserable electoral process.
In order to clearly contemplate on the fact, we should have a glance at the general election and local authority laws and their conditions that govern nomination for Parliament or local councils at the governorate and district levels. The General Election Law stipulates that any government employees willing to nominate themselves in any local or parliamentary elections must resign their current posts. The same also applies even for simple employees in order to ensure that candidates can not use their power to influence or intimidate voters.
During Yemen's first governor elections, all such conditions violated and were not even considered by candidates who ran for governor in the various Yemeni provinces. The legal violations committed before, during and after the votes provides the clearest evidence of the absurdity of the electoral process that has created a market for deals and offers to many of those who made bids to run for governor in order to withdraw in favor of ruling party candidates.
Even worse, the local communities paid no attention to the governor election that was conducted amid local crises in most of the Yemeni governorates. Shortage of diesel in the local markets hindered public and private businesses, many governorates were suffering insecurity and highway robbery of vehicles was practiced in several areas. No attention was drawn to these problems as the authority was extremely engaged in electing governors.
At this point, I would like to highlight a dangerous phenomenon practiced by the GPC government that never feels ashamed of committing frequent violations against the Constitution and effective laws. It violated Article 60 of the Election Law stipulating that “no Parliament or local council member is allowed to have another government job in addition to his/her being Parliament or local council member.””
The legal article
